Charisma! What is it good for? (Shopping)

[Magnate]

I wrote it to that tune.

It would have been quite eerie if you hadn't.

(@Zikke - yes, I certainly did. I tend to think oh "hooh!" as "hurgh!" though ...)

[PaulBlay]

Did anybody else read the title of this thread to the tune of War by Edwin Starr?

I wrote it to that tune.

[Zikke]

Did anybody else read the title of this thread to the tune of War by Edwin Starr?


Or just me...


Charisma! (hooh! Good God y'all) What is it good for? (Absolutely nothin). Say it again now!

[bebo]

some of the proposals here are quite interesting, but imho are more in the territory of variants rather than vanilla;

if i had to cast my vote i would say to remove charisma altogether; adding stealth in it's stead though leaves me a bit perplexed, not only from a flavour point of view, but also beacause it's mechanics would have to be completely reworked and balanced - which might be good, adding sneak attacks, bonuses for rogues, etc

[ekolis]

I wonder what would be enough to compel somebody to actually change their strategy to choose a higher charisma. Having some potentially-neutral monsters sounds pretty cool, but still relatively unimportant. Unless, perhaps, they are made especially tough or annoying for their level

Such as humanoids, dragons, and uniques? It always made me wonder, why everyone in the game was against you - every apprentice mage, every novice paladin, every rogue and warrior, and all the so-called "intelligent" creatures such as ancient red dragons and zephyr hounds... intelligent monsters tend to be among the most dangerous, as well as the most logical targets for the "charisma effect", so why not do it? Heck, maybe if you roll a critical success, some of them might even help you out by attacking the other monsters! Imagine fighting a gang of novice mages and suddenly a couple of them decide to surrender in the face of your "superior tactics", and start casting magic missiles at their pals!

[tigen]

I'm not sure if CHA should be ditched yet, it'd be nice to find some more uses for it...

It seems like, if you want to keep it around, you'd want to focus on things that would matter mostly in the early game. Later on, everybody gets a high CHA, so you'd have to be careful about conferring great benefits onto that without some other balancing. That's kind of unfortunate that this game is balanced around "statgain" instead of having alternative character builds and strategies.

I wonder what would be enough to compel somebody to actually change their strategy to choose a higher charisma. Having some potentially-neutral monsters sounds pretty cool, but still relatively unimportant. Unless, perhaps, they are made especially tough or annoying for their level

[azfalt]

How about expanding the idea of CHA as a stat?

Currently we take CHA to mean 'charisma', but it could just as well be 'charm', 'chance', 'character', etc... (without being too silly, like 'chastity', 'charity' or 'chablis')

What I mean is that if you interpret charisma a little more loosely to generally include luck/charm then it could have some more game-relevant effects. For instance, high CHA could improve saving throw, disarming, maybe even searching, as well as having effects on store prices. Perhaps very high CHA could give a small chance of partially resisting certain nasty effects of high-level elemental attacks (nexus, nether, chaos, time, etc)

I definitely think CHA should influence success of spells such as slow/sleep/confuse monster, except that these spells seem to have so little effect on gameplay that it'd hardly matter. It'd be interesting for priests/paladins if CHA improved Dispel Evil/Undead and Protection from Evil success rates, so CHA would act like a 'holiness' stat. It'd explain why one of Paladin's primary stats is CHA, as someone mentioned earlier.

Perhaps CHA should influence stealth? I'm not sure if CHA should be ditched yet, it'd be nice to find some more uses for it...

[PaulBlay]

I'm going to use something like this in FA040, where there are going to be monsters which don't always attack the player. Their chance of being hostile will depend on several factors, one of which will be charisma.

If they aren't hostile I suggest that the default action when the player moves onto their space should be "swap positions" not "attack". (Attacks can be done with the + alter grid command).

[Nolendil]

Sounds cool

[Nick]

Otherwise, I think charisma also includes how self-confident you look.
So, an adventurer with high charisma would impress monsters and they would be more reluctant to attack the player.

I'm going to use something like this in FA040, where there are going to be monsters which don't always attack the player. Their chance of being hostile will depend on several factors, one of which will be charisma.

[Nolendil]

possibly make the shopping angle more important (have it affect which things are stocked? Let a high starting charisma give you better starting equipment + money? Let it give you access to really much better deals, for example in the black market?)

This idea also makes charisma more interesting when shopping.

Otherwise, I think charisma also includes how self-confident you look.
So, an adventurer with high charisma would impress monsters and they would be more reluctant to attack the player.
It's not like stealth : monsters could come near the player but wouldn't rush toward him all together, some would keep some distance, some would never attack and even run away from the player.
They could also flee earlier when wounded.
We could also consider that they become nervous and could fail some attacks and spells once in a while.
They could be more vulnerable to spells (damage/effects have a higher chance of being around the max value) and critical strikes could be more likely.

[Pete Mack]

Charisma is supposed to effect the usefulness of "charm" type spells, like Scare, Sleep, Confuse, and possibly even sound/stun attacks. Unfortunately, those spells are not particularly useful, with or without the slight benefit that CHA gives. If the spells were made more powerful, and/or the effects were also added to the CL in "protection from evil", CHA would be significantly more useful.

[tigen]

The D&D concept of Charisma is clearly for social interaction. So my feeling is that either you plan on adding more of this to the game in the long run (having it only for shopping seems pointless), or else get rid of it. Or possibly make the shopping angle more important (have it affect which things are stocked? Let a high starting charisma give you better starting equipment + money? Let it give you access to really much better deals, for example in the black market?) In a *band with some sort of quests feature it could influence rewards.

As an aside, I think the Incursion project that I toyed with briefly has an ambitious implementation of bona fide social interaction, where creatures in the game have varying dispositions and alignments, and some can be traded with, made into allies, or hired for specific situations (e.g. keeping watch while you rest). Monsters also have inventories, and can pick up loot from your kill, which is pretty annoying, but you can ask them to give it back... depending on Charisma.

[Greyhame]

Charisma

some definitions

a personal attractiveness or interestingness that enables you to "influence" others ----in that regard it should be used to increase the effectiveness of certain spells(confusing monsters, blinding them with light, etc). As well as getting better prices in stores

Personal charm or magnetism; An extraordinary power granted by the Holy Spirit; The ability to influence without the use of logic. Could be used to increase the effectiveness of spells such as creating food, finding treasure, etc

charismatic - the ability to lead and influence large numbers of people.

Charisma should also potentiate some of the abilities of the rogue character type

[zaimoni]

I came across a somewhat old newsgroup discussion on what should be done about money/charisma. http://angband.oook.cz/rgra.php?showpost=115811
I don't think a great deal has changed with respect to charisma since then.

Unfortunately, yes. The AI just isn't enough there yet. (In my opinion, high charisma should cause the monster AI to be suboptimal. E.g., giving the player free chances to kill at range, or inducing overconfidence to *not* teleport away/heal when appropriate.)